SWMBO's machine lost some important marbles yesterday, very probably somewhere in the certificate storage and retrieval mechanisms. She couldn't send email or complete transactions on the likes of Amazon. Neither could I when I tested to see whether it was a system-wide problem. Extensive web searching, re-configuring, reinstalling, upgrading and downgrading took hours and eventually made things so much worse that the easiest recovery mechanism was to reinstall Mint on the spare disk and regenerate her settings very carefully. It took hours, I skipped lunch and dinner and eventually went to bed at 3am.

Still no idea what had gone wrong, which worries me.

[QUOTE=xilman;448743]SWMBO's machine lost some important marbles yesterday, very probably somewhere in the certificate storage and retrieval mechanisms. She couldn't send email or complete transactions on the likes of Amazon. Neither could I when I tested to see whether it was a system-wide problem. Extensive web searching, re-configuring, reinstalling, upgrading and downgrading took hours and eventually made things so much worse that the easiest recovery mechanism was to reinstall Mint on the spare disk and regenerate her settings very carefully. It took hours, I skipped lunch and dinner and eventually went to bed at 3am.

Still no idea what had gone wrong, which worries me.[/QUOTE]

Had the machine in question just been updated? Firefox and Chrome have both recently made changes regarding https; in particular, Firefox began rejecting certificates which included a certain Chinese CA in their chain of trust, and... I forget the details of whatever Chrome changed, but it was something relating to https default settings (I don't think it was directly cert related but...)

Was the problem indeed system wide? (I read your message to indicate that you tested for system wide problems, but I don't see whatever conclusion you drew from that.) Even if it was affecting more than e.g. Firefox, it still may be related to that particular CA being marked untrusted, since I'm sure many people/organizations will have followed Firefox's suit. (Though I suppose that doesn't really explain why a fresh install would work better than a newly upgraded system, which you tried.)

After many years of nothing, today earth was quaking :) And since epicenter was only 17 km from my town, it was quake.... with momling sound.....
So now, I can rest next fifteen years.. ( average period between two quakes) :smile:

[QUOTE=Dubslow;448833]Had the machine in question just been updated?[/QUOTE]Very probably, given that the machine auto-updates for security related issues.

Given that both Chrome and Evolution had problems I'm pretty sure that an underlying component was broken.

Still, SWMBO seems happy enough for the time being.

[QUOTE=xilman;448843]Very probably, given that the machine auto-updates for security related issues.

Given that both Chrome and Evolution had problems I'm pretty sure that an underlying component was broken.
[/QUOTE]

Hmm... I've a fully patched Mint as well (18.0-kernel 4.4.0-45) and, apart from some recent networking hiccups, nothing so pervasive is happening to me. Looking forward to the upgrade to 18.1, should be ready in a matter of days.

EDIT: looking at [URL="https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewforum.php?f=150"]Ethernet forum[/URL] this seems to be a wider issue

The death of a little baby chicken...
 

So, I woke up this morning to find a little baby chicken dead on our south lawn.

It was only three days old or so. I had been feeding it, along with its three siblings and its mother.

I don't think our cats killed it; they are kept in in the evenings.

I have been told by a friend of mine who is a veterinarian that young chicks can "just die because of blockages".

Still, I hate death. Even though I know it is inevitable.

[QUOTE=chalsall;450480]Still, I hate death. Even though I know it is inevitable.[/QUOTE]I helped a relative carry their large breed dog to the car for the last ride to the vet. She had been a breeder at a puppy mill before my relative adopted her. She was not happy and underweight. Her life improved many-fold after that.

Without death we would have immortal wicked people still with us.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;450483]Without death we would have immortal wicked people still with us.[/QUOTE]
A relatively little known fact is that without death we would have only ~15 times more people in the world.
[CODE]NUMBER WHO HAVE EVER BEEN BORN 107,602,700,000
World population 7,100,000,000
Percent of those ever born who are living 6.5%

[SIZE="1"]Source: Population Reference Bureau estimates[/SIZE].[/CODE]

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;450483]Without death we would have immortal wicked people still with us.[/QUOTE]

Certainly. And possibly some immortally great people as well.

Great and wicked are not disjoint sets.

[QUOTE=Batalov;450484]A relatively little known fact is that without death we would have only ~15 times more people in the world.
[CODE]NUMBER WHO HAVE EVER BEEN BORN 107,602,700,000
World population 7,100,000,000
Percent of those ever born who are living 6.5%

[SIZE=1]Source: Population Reference Bureau estimates[/SIZE].[/CODE][/QUOTE]
You don't work in a bank, do you? Because you forgot the interest to the interest...
The living guys would have had children too, and their children in turn... etc.
Fibonacci... rabbits... etc.. hehe...